2. Wear a gigantic badge/bib with your name spelled in bright colors. Extra points for you if you write it on your arms in a Sharpie.

3. Use a nickname. Someone named Pickles was one of the most popular runners around.

Pre-Marathon Diet

Traveling for a marathon adds stress. Stay away from all the free edible marathon expo crap. I ate nuts and sliced veggies on the plane as well as some deli meats. Deli meat is a perfect way to get protein on the go without feeling like you’re stuffing yourself.

Day before marathon I ate:

2 eggs with zucchini and tea. A few rice crackers

A cup of tea, a couple of cups of coffee

Lunch: Gigantic green salad with grilled chicken, more water and tea

Dinner: Grilled veggies, chicken breast stuffed with proscuitto and herbs and onions. I ate until I was 75% full. Not stuffed. More water and more tea.

Marathon morning: Brown rice and sliced turkey breast and coffee.

One hour before the race: LaraBar, some fruit leather and some more coffee

Note: No huge plate of starches or pasta with acidic tomato sauce.

Post Race

I wanted to collapse after crossing the finish line. I was forced to move through all the post-race checkpoints and that kept me on my feet and walking for 20 minutes. I recovered quicker and felt better. Keep those legs moving – however slowly. A pathetic, hobbling walk is perfectly acceptable.

6 Responses to Lessons Learned from The Boston Marathon

hi, heather! i am jovie a.k.a Bald Runner from the Philippines. i came across your blog on the Tag Surfer and i am really impressed on your personal account of running in the 2008 Boston Marathon with your new PR best time. congratulations! you have a very nice and impressive stories/posts on your blog. i would like to share your post on this particular event to my friends and visitors of my blog. may i therefore request your permission to link your blog to my blogsite. thanks

What wonderful suggestions, Heather. I’m especially interested in your ideas about diet. Do you think that pasta weighs one down? Also, you ate protein at every meal and many greens. What diet are you following?

Congratulations on your successful marathon! Love the tips too – I think the first goes for any race, crowds love people who stand out! I’m not sure where you’re from, but in Austin we have a ‘Keep Austin Weird’ race, founded a few years ago because the annual Capital 10k was turning into a costume party! I guess they wanted to make it a bit more serious and get the costumers their own race!

I ran two marathons twenty five years ago, Hong Kong and London after training really well in the hills and heat of Hong Kong for nearly a year with others, really t6raining hard and fast, but then slowed it all in the last month prior to the race due to work commitments, film to make. Big mistake. Your comments and diary bring it all back. Disciplined training schedule is essential and if you want a good time (I was aiming at 2.45 to 2.50 which was good for me), you have to keep your training going, sprints, varied distances paces, long long runs once week, hill, up and down. In the race I took it easy in the early miles and paid the price from 21 onwards. The guy (I didn’t know) alongside me said to me ‘we better get going if we are going to get in 2.50s.’ I tried to speed up and couldn’t. Heart and lungs great, legs ‘glycogen gone’. By 23 miles they were shot. I hobbled over the line 3 hours and 27 seconds. If had gone one second faster for each mile of the whole race I could have done my bottom line goal of 2 hours 59 min 59 secs. Missing that hurt. I resepct my knees and swim now, 1500 meters freestyle five days a week at a fair clip. But boy reading your marathon diary brought it all back. Well done! Next time you’ll do what I didn’t do, beat three hours.